“The state with the highest per capita gun death rate in 2016 was Alaska, followed by Alabama. Each of these states has extremely lax gun violence prevention laws as well as a higher rate of gun ownership. The state with the lowest gun death rate in the nation was Massachusetts, followed by New York. Each of these states has strong gun violence prevention laws and a lower rate of gun ownership.

Nationally, the total number of Americans killed by gunfire increased to 38,658 in 2016 from 36,252 in 2015. The nationwide gun death rate in 2016 was 11.96 per 100,000, an increase of 6.0 percent from 2015’s gun death rate of 11.28 per 100,000. The increase in the overall firearm death rate was driven largely by firearm homicides, which increased by 10.4 percent (from a rate of 4.04 per 100,000 in 2015 to 4.46 per 100,000 in 2016). The firearms suicide rate was up 3.6 percent from 2015 to 2016.”